I remember reading something similar once, during Katarina Witt's reign. Not to take away from Witt's achievements, but one editor pointed out that even with the Cold War, people from German-speaking countries tended to feel an affinity for one another, so that a West German judge might prefer an East German skater over, say, an American one. It wasn't collusion so much as a preference for the style of that skater, as today European judges tend to prefer the way Kostner executes a movement. Human beings aren't machines; their perceptions are colored by their upbringing, what they grew up enjoying, and their cultural mindset.

I just watched it again. Let’s see here…just to pick some of Mr. Carroll’s comments at random… Here is his response to the question of whether he was a better teacher of toe jumps than of edge jumps, with particular reference to Michelle Kwan’s loop jump.

If you go back to some of her You Tube things now, to me it’s amazing to watch Michelle. It’s amazing. I can’t tell you what pleasure I’ve gotten just in the last couple of weeks looking back at her videos, and when you see Salome and she starts out with a triple loop it’s just the most beautiful triple jump -- she starts backward totally and jumps in the air and lands backward like a million dollars, so I don’t see much difference between my toe jump technique and my edge jump technique.

But I’ve got to tell you something about Michelle. If you go back and look at 1996 or if you look at the year 2001 and you see her triple-triple, and you look at the year 2000, then you see some of her show programs like to Les Miserables, the On My Own, and even Pocahontas, which I didn’t want her to do because I though t it was such a hokey thing, and you look at her interpretation of the music, and her head, and her use of arms without looking at her feet, the emotion, the beauty of the flow across the ice, the dynamic landings, there’s no one in the world who skates like that.

I’m sorry, I don’t care whether you’re adding up beans in a pot for difficulty…I mean, no one exists like Michelle, with that beauty of movement, that power, that imterpretation, you know, the technical accuracy. You know, she was one of a kind and I don’t see anyone coming up that looks like that. I’m sorry, I just don’t. I don’t.